Mii-chan and Yamada-san - Ch. 8.1 - I hate that woman

[MangaDex]

 

[eightrooks]

Be warned that if you haven't looked at the raws, then (mild spoilers) the very end of 8.2 - then into 9 and 10 -

Spoiler

kicks off a subplot some people are probably going to find pretty upsetting. (Understandably so.)

If anyone wants me to spoil that more openly ahead of next week (or whenever I get it done) so you know exactly what I'm referring to, then by all means let me know. Just thought maybe I should say something in advance, since a few of you following this seem to have been struggling with the #content at times. Hope that doesn't sound dumb!

 

[ErikTheRed]

Christ, he's way too deep into the manosphere. His delusional expectations of Mii-chan will not end up well for her.

 

[nicolas22g]

I can't stand him either

 

[Rafalga]

Spoiler

kicks off a subplot some people are probably going to find pretty upsetting. (Understandably so.)

Spoiler

Damn, cutey getting beat up and being the product of incest wasn't on my bingo card. Her life was truely hell till the end i guess. Man i hate misery porn stories...

 

[eightrooks]

Spoiler

Damn, cutey getting beat up and being the product of incest wasn't on my bingo card. Her life was truely hell till the end i guess. Man i hate misery porn stories...

The mangaka talked in that Japanese interview I've linked a couple of times about how the first thing in your spoiler was inspired by her own life at the time, not anything specific that happened to the real "Mii-chan", so I assumed that bit was coming - i.e. it was in the original version of the story, so I felt there was a good chance she was going to put it in this reboot, too. (Hope to Christ the second didn't happen to either of them, obviously, whatever ultimately the reason was the real Mii-chan seems to have died.)

At the same time, again, FWIW I do not agree it's flat-out misery-porn. I think the best stories about people at the absolute bottom of the ladder make it clear that even when your life is about as rough as it can get, there's probably something that can still make you smile, whether or not that makes things any better. One of my favourite movies of all time, Humanity and Paper Balloons (1937), deals with rich people making life absolute hell for poor people who effectively have no way out of their situation; it starts and ends (major, major spoilers here)

Spoiler

with a suicide,

but it still shows there's more to the protagonists' lives that grubbing around in the dirt being miserable. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't get the feeling the mangaka meant for the takeaway to be unrelenting "Woe is me, my life is nothing but pain". 🤷‍♂️

 

[Rafalga]

The mangaka talked in that Japanese interview I've linked a couple of times about how the first thing in your spoiler was inspired by her own life at the time, not anything specific that happened to the real "Mii-chan", so I assumed that bit was coming - i.e. it was in the original version of the story, so I felt there was a good chance she was going to put it in this reboot, too. (Hope to Christ the second didn't happen to either of them, obviously, whatever ultimately the reason was the real Mii-chan seems to have died.)

At the same time, again, FWIW I do not agree it's flat-out misery-porn. I think the best stories about people at the absolute bottom of the ladder make it clear that even when your life is about as rough as it can get, there's probably something that can still make you smile, whether or not that makes things any better. One of my favourite movies of all time, Humanity and Paper Balloons (1937), deals with rich people making life absolute hell for poor people who effectively have no way out of their situation; it starts and ends (major, major spoilers here)

Spoiler

with a suicide,

but it still shows there's more to the protagonists' lives that grubbing around in the dirt being miserable. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't get the feeling the mangaka meant for the takeaway to be unrelenting "Woe is me, my life is nothing but pain". 🤷‍♂️

Spoiler

Mii-chan is quite obviously a nerodivergent individual. She is very high on the spectrum (can't properly read, can't asses the emotions/situations around her, can't handle pretty much most things, helplessly naive) and it wasn't suprising to learn that she is a product of incest.

To me, she is written to be as pitiful as possible. That's the misery porn part for me. Are there no people like her out there? I'm %100 sure there are but i can bring myself to care or watch about the "stories" they involve in much like how i don't enjoy watching puppies getting killed. It's low hanging fruit of drama writing. You only come out 100 times more miserable at the end of it as a reader. It has no value in my eyes in terms of story telling.

Well, she is not the main POV of the story and we know how she will end up so i'm sure FMC will go through some life lessons but still. It is what it is. I have very high sense of empathy and stories like these tends to ruin my nights entirely. That's why i try to avoid them when possible.

 

[Minnesota-tan]

I can sympathize a lot with that guy who wants to be mii-chan's boyfriend. Hope he doesn't end up dead too.

 

[silverpetricof]

Thank you for the translation.

 

[eightrooks]

Next chapter's coming, but not tonight; 1) I've been a lot busier with work and 2) for some reason MTL has really been giving me problems lately, like it can only offer pretty low-quality translations most of the time. (I can still keep working like this, but it takes much longer since I have to guess and/or do a lot more looking stuff up.) I know the stuff I'm working on isn't a huge deal, but just thought I'd mention. Hopefully I'll get something up over the weekend.

 

[WaffleIroner]

Next chapter's coming, but not tonight; 1) I've been a lot busier with work and 2) for some reason MTL has really been giving me problems lately, like it can only offer pretty low-quality translations most of the time. (I can still keep working like this, but it takes much longer since I have to guess and/or do a lot more looking stuff up.) I know the stuff I'm working on isn't a huge deal, but just thought I'd mention. Hopefully I'll get something up over the weekend.

I think your work has been pretty good so far. It's a nice comic and I'm glad someone's doing it justice.